Abstract:

The value congruence is an essential element to understand aspects of cultures in organizations, especially related to the sense of belonging of workers to their institution. Previous studies showed that congruence has to be analyzed considering the P-O fit and value conflict, considering the fit and conflict as independent variables. For the following research was used a sample of 1836 workers from three different national contexts (Brazil = 373, Portugal = 236, Ecuador = 1227), where was applied the same version of the APO questionnaire validated for Portugal and for Ecuador. For its application in Brazil, the validation process was carried out during the investigation. The results were divided into two parts. At first, we found statistically significant differences taking into account the behavior of the fit and conflict variables between Brazil and Portugal when compared with Ecuador (fit values were statistically higher in Ecuador, while those in conflict were statistically lower). In the case of the value recognition, which was another of the variables measured, there were statistically significant differences in the three countries (the greatest recognition was in Ecuador, secondly Portugal and, finally, Brazil). The second group of results was related to the correlations between the three variables analyzed. In the three countries there were statistically significant and positive correlations among the three variables, except in Ecuador for the case of the relationship between conflict and values fit, where there were no statistically significant correlations. Our research highlights important aspects at the cultural level, with Brazil and Portugal being more similar in the measured elements compared to Ecuador, even though Ecuador and Brazil share the same regional space. However, there are similarities taking into account the relationships between the variables. These results allow to explain future investigations and to direct them towards more spaces where the elements of the culture appear as common aspects between the different contexts.

Keywords:

Value congruence, P-O fit, value conflict, context, organizational culture.